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Amir
"The Amir don't believe in monsters. To the nightmares in the darkness, they are the monsters." The Amir are an ancient organization of warriors, scholars, nobles, craftsmen and other people of influence and power that rose to prominence during the age of expansion as law bringers and protectors of the innocent. They were given legitimacy and authority by the great civilizations of Prime during this time due to their reliance and seemingly unbending dedication to the goal of bringing order to the world. Though some claim that they have their roots in the time before the dawn era, evidence of their existence only starts after the first recorded history of the great civilizations. Though their primary purpose seemed to be law enforcement and spread of civilization, the Amir inner circle claims their true purpose is the eradication of what they deem "monsters" from the surface of Prime. This has been met with skepticism from the more rational minded civilizations. History "It is no longer the time of the night. The tribes of the moon have had their reign, now that the sun burns bright above our heads, and the encroaching dark has lost its eternal dominion over the land. We, the hunted, now become the hunters" '' '''Founding' The Amir during the first age of expansion appeared in the far east of the Prime Midlands between the site of the Rakkaan Crucible and Mount Gogalith. Their oldest histories tell of refugees from all over the world hearing an ancient tale of a place safe for the displaced and downtrodden. These stories led refugees from all over Prime to an ancient fortification of unknown origin. Within this fortress they found a tribal group referring to themselves as the Amir in their language translating roughly to "those that lived" or "survivors" who told them horrible stories of incomprehensible horrors that once had dominion over the lands of men. Wishing to prevent their return, those inside founded an order to hunt down and exterminate any remnant of these terrors from the lands of men. Finding suitable weapons and materials inside the fortification, the tribe of the Amir was resurrected. Recognition by greater nations The Amir set to their task of hunting down and exterminating monsters, first encountering rogue biomorphs escaped from the temples of Kushan. The Kushani nobles, at first dismissed the Amir as well equipped locals cleaning up their issues for them, but soon recognized them as a separate entity from the surrounding independent kingdoms and villages in the area. They were offered gold and support for their continued effort, a payment which they gratefully accepted. As bands of Amir continued to travel far and wide in search of monsters, they acquired new recruits from all over Prime into their ranks. They gained recognition from the Tallet Empire and Stone Kingdoms for the eradication of several Rakkaan '''migrations, declaring the Rakkaan as "humans twisted into monsters by an affliction not of this world" The Tallet and Hearth declared them protectors of the roads, the Broken Kingdoms declared them an order of holy knights. The '''Goran tolerated their existence as their philosophy seemed to revolve around the worship of the sun and their belief it gave life and purged evil from the land. Other nations such as the Technocracy and Ashed seemed to ignore them as little more than a superstitious cult that posed no real danger to them as a whole. The Amir was more than willing to spend large sums of gold for specialized equipment or materials for their mission which endeared them to both factions. Bringers of Law Due to their recognition by other nations, the Amir were offered legitimacy by great nations to carry out legal proceedings in areas under the influence of great nations but out of convenient reach. This not only gave the Amir authority but a vital task that caused the great nations to begin to rely on them. The Amir soon began taking part in manhunts for vicious criminals and bandits attacking the roads. Amir Justicars were considered trusted interpreters of the law as well as authorities in even remote corners of the world. They had the right in many cases to supersede the authority of large cities and settlements should they deem it necessary to carry out their mission. Peak Soon Amir had fortresses and offices all over the surface of Prime. While they had no great armies, their fortresses were staffed by small numbers of highly trained and well equipped soldiers, mancers, and craftsmen. Aside from the Fall ''' During the '''Great Immortal War the Amir were marked for death by nearly all of the great nations for high treason. It was rumored that the machinations of the Amir were the cause of the great war for unknown reasons. During the war and well afterwards the Amir were killed on sight, their wealth taken from them, their fortresses destroyed or conquered. Due to the chaotic nature of the wartime a large portion of the Amir was able to escape to unknown locations around Prime, often times being protected and hidden by the various small civilizations they protected for so many centuries. Current era ''' The Amir in its current state is a disbanded and outright illegal organization across the great nations of Prime. It is rumored that many of them still hold positions of power as a secret society in the great nations or left to found smaller civilizations of their own under different names and banners. Certain noble families of the '''Broken Kingdom sympathetic to their cause may have sheltered them or continue their traditions in secret. Noble houses of the Tallet may still keep the networks of influence for their own benefit. Disdain for ab humans "They are the human form made corrupt. False flesh and puppets of the dark powers. We suffer their existence for now because we must" '' The Amir were first, Prime strain humans at the founding. Their experience as keepers of law gave them a negative experience towards the '''Woag', calling them "bestial". Their opinions of the Ashed were that they were "human enough" to trade and communicate with but refused to let any into their order. Fel blooded, Daevers and stalkers were considered animals at best. They had a particular hatred of Rakkaan '''and '''Lurkers whom they declared puppets of the dark horrors that waited just beyond our sight. They would often kill them on sight if given the opportunity and more than once attempted to storm the Crucible, all attempts ending in failure and inability to recover the bodies of those that went in. The Goran strains of ab humans are considered a foreign species to the Amir. And a blight upon the surface of prime. It is rumored that many of the attempts at Goran expansion that end in plague, famine, disease or otherwise foul ends are the work of the Amir in exile still hampering their expansion. Tools and tactics "Ever since the first hero discovered the killing power of stone there has been a right weapon for the task at hand. We have come far from sharpened rocks" The Amir were known for using a variety of strange and exotic weaponry during the height of their power, often commissioning such things from the Technocracy or specialist craftsmen from the Ashed or Broken Kingdoms. Many techmaturgical weapons were crafted for them such as a sword with rotating teeth or an armored gauntlet that sported a miniature krak cannon on the wrist. Some weapons were to be made of specialized material such as a spearhead with an edge of Sumeran '''steel and a core of pure silver forged under a full moon. These requests were always strange but they paid well and few questions were asked at the time. Rare weapons forged of '''blood iron were ordered almost exclusively by the Amir, much to their disdain the only smiths aside from their own with the skill to craft such strange material came from the Ashed Cities Activities "Not all monsters have claws and fangs, not all monsters kill, the one common trait in monsters is their disregard for the suffering of others and the propensity to inflict pain on others for their own pleasure. Regardless of form, human or beast, these creatures will be eliminated" '' '''Traveling Judges ' The Amir were granted extraordinary power to practice law in nearly every civilized nation during the First Age, and their reputation around Soi caused any smaller nation that had heard of them allow them to act as police and judges within their borders having a reputation of being fair but unbending in their actions. Usually the presence of an Amir was enough to lower crime rates for fear of immediate and unyielding justice. Many that were aware of them considered them too harsh in their practice, but few would stand against them as their influence reached too far for most people to resit. Lawbringers ''' In certain situations where bandit nests become too fortified or large, or a criminal empire becomes too entrenched in the internal politics of a city to be removed by the already present power structure, the Amir may be called upon to remove them. Bandit hunting was their most profitable activity as it was the least politically risky and was often sanctioned and rewarded by the local lords of the land. These services were often employed by small nations or the Family Hearth in their upkeep of the road systems of Soi. Dislodging criminal organizations from urban centers and political systems is a highly risky move for the Amir as it requires complete commitment until the job is done, and they will likely be fighting the city authorities themselves for power. In cases such as this the Amir first seeks to take over the legal structure of the area and bring as many law officers as they can to their side before attempting what is essentially a coup. After the purging is complete the power and control is given back into local hands, though agents are often placed in strategic positions of power to ensure cooperation in the future. '''The Hunt "Never forget our true purpose. We enforce the laws of the kings of this world because it gives us the necessary authority and power to fight the true battle of this world. Before these petty civilizations, before we humans had anything, there was nothing, and before there was nothing, there were monsters. We will not return to that dark place, the eternal nightmare of being prey to the aberrant. We fight the monsters in the dark so that others may stand in the light. Never forget that" '' The primary function of the Amir was to protect what they consider humanity from "monsters". This is often construed by many as rogue [[Biomorph|'Biomorphs']] or large aggressive flora and fauna of commonplace in Soi. This can occasionally refer to ordinary human beings that have committed atrocities with no remorse or reason, and will not stop unless they themselves are stopped. Large aggressive animals and psychopaths aside, the inner circles of the Amir insist the true danger to humanity is and has always been creatures from beyond our own reality, things that defy natural law. The destruction of these [[aberrant|'aberrant']] are their true purpose, and all other struggles encountered by humanity are distractions from the truly alien. This danger and those that fight it according to their lore pre-date the 'Dawn Era, and the rapid advancement of civilization is due to the efforts of people like them creating a world of peace for humanity to flourish. Membership ''"I know that look, that terrible rage burning in your eyes. You were forced to learn a cruel lesson, that the world is not always just, that there are those without decency, without mercy, that there are monsters in the world that exist to spread cruelty. We will teach you to use it to ensure wherever you go, what happened to you will not happen again" ''(Amir trainer to new recruit) The Amir recruit from all over Soi. Nations great and small as well as nameless villages and hamlets have given recruits to their organization. The Amir favor two kinds of recruits, those already with connections or power, and those with nothing. The Order of the sword often recruits from survivors of great tragedies, usually young at an emotionally vulnerable time in their life where their body and mind can be shaped to their purpose. These lost souls are often orphaned by war, crime, rogue bio-morphs, or other tragedy with targets for vengeance. This is usually done due to the already instilled motivation for action but with a lack of purpose or direction. These recruits properly trained tend to follow orders without question and go to their deaths without complaint. The orders of the Word and Hammer often recruit from families of wealth, power, and influence as they are composed of the indispensable scholars and craftsmen of the organization. These people are kept out of dangerous situations due to their lack of specialized training and the potential resources and favor they can bring with them. '''Order of the Sword The Sword is the military arm of the Amir. The warriors that hunted the monsters that preyed on humanity. The trainers that shaped new recruits into Amir agents, and later in their history, assassins that helped them gain larger influence by removing resistance in key places of power. * The order of the sword was the smallest branch of the Amir. They never fielded armies of true Amir, if they ever needed large numbers they would either acquire large forces from a local lord under the influence of the order of the word or pay mercenaries. Order of the Word The political and intellectual arm of the Amir. Record keepers Amir, responsible for keeping the history of the organization, but also storing knowledge on the traditional weaknesses and methods of destroying monsters they hunted. The researchers of the Amir developed new weapons and tactics they could use to these ends. The politicians of the Amir was composed of planted advisers, rulers and legal figures that allowed the Amir to act unimpeded by the forces of whatever nation they operated in. Order of the Hammer The sustaining arm of the Amir. This branch was composed of craftsmen, merchants, and farmers of specific medicinal crops. The men and women of the Hammer were responsible for the upkeep of their equipment and strongholds, maintaining their supply lines, and keeping the members of the organization healthy and well supplied Mythology "We humans used to cower against the dark. It is our nature after all to flee from things we cannot fight or understand. This lasted since the first human drew breath for uncounted eons, then something truly remarkable happened. One of us stood up. One of us said "no more". One of us decided to stand against the dark, to conquer fear and shout into the void "no more". This was the first hero, and we carry on that tradition" '' Notable events '''Laughing mountain incident' During the First Age, stories traveled by Woag traders of creatures that lived in the northern mountain ridges. Child eating monsters that would lure unsuspecting woag children to their deaths. Terribly strong, clever, and sadistic they terrorized the people of the North. Amir agents were dispatched to investigate the rumors, to find that Woag hunting parties were being assembled to battle the monsters in their dens. Dozens of woag and Amir never left the mountain, but they returned with several inhuman corpses, the skins of which still hang over the mantels of Woag chieftains. Burning of Watcher's woods ''' Rumors of a stretch of forest that distorted time and space within its borders reached the attention of the Amir. After several excursions into the forest in which several of their members were lost, the Amir commissioned the creation of a hundred of siege catapults and enough fuel to burn the forest down. After several days of flinging burning pitch and oil into the forest, the reports state they noticed the forest edging closer to them. Every step they took seemed to take them closer to the forest despite the direction they took. Orders were given to continue the assault. Many of their number burned to death as the men were incapable of running away from the inferno. During the assault, several of their missing agents and several villagers that had gone missing years ago emerged from the forest seeming to have not aged at all from their disappearance. The assault stopped when they ran out of fuel, re-measuring of the forest confirmed that the area had grown smaller by several acres, where they had attacked, but incidents of irregular occurrences had bulged out in other directions. The assault was ordered to stop. '''Hunt for the headless ColdCrow Plains investigation ''' The stretch of lands in the northern '''Broken Kingdom known as the ColdCrow Plains was the site of a massacre of armored riders and mortal nation cavalry by an unknown third force that left only a single survivor out of the 4000 strong casualties. The unknown third party drew the attention of the Amir due to the sole survivor describing what appeared to be unnatural forces at work. The Amir brought seven agents of the sword, word, and hammer along with 1000 hired laborers to excavate the area. The Amir investigated the local population, looking for keepsakes from the original battle, and requesting lords in the Broken Kingdom for any pieces of the unknown creatures that may have been preserved, several pieces were handed over to the Amir. During the investigation, the Amir began unearthing what appeared to be the tip of a large buried structure, then abruptly halted the project. Nearly a hundred laborers went missing and the rest were ordered to bury what they had found. A monument was commissioned by the Amir to be built over the location, and an additional condition that the Kingdom would keep maintenance on the area to ensure the monument was not disturbed. Category:History Category:Culture